


Benevolence

by DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mashup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27092656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered
Summary: Basically I dropped the supergirl characters into the Warrior Nun universe and it might be a mess but I think it’s fun.  :)
Relationships: Astra/Alex Danvers
Comments: 23
Kudos: 37
Collections: General Danvers & Supercat Week 5





	Benevolence

Stained glass leaves its marks in light on the floors and Alex and Sister Kara kneel beside each other in the pews, in matching grey clothes. At a quick glance, one might not notice that Kara’s is a habit, and Alex’s simply a long jacket with a hood. They’re still new to this life, but Kara had grown up beside her, and though they are not blood, Alex would go anywhere with her. And where Kara needed to be was in the church, serving God, just as her mother was doing. 

“Are you sure about this?” Kara whispered to her. 

Kara had been very small when her mother, Alura, had received the call to join the Church and become part of the OCS, as her twin sister Astra had done before that. Alex would never know if Kara was here because she truly felt the calling, or if she only wanted to be near the mother she grew up without. 

Alex smiles faintly, looking out the corner of her eye, their faces tilted up toward the cross above the altar. “In this life or the next, Sis.” 

“In this life or the next,” Kara agrees. 

The words are new. They taste strange in Alex’s mouth. 

  
  


*****

The Order of the Cruciform Sword is led by a Halo Bearer, a woman chosen by the Church hierarchy to receive the gift of an angel’s halo in her back. It gives her powers like the heroes of the comics Alex read growing up. 

Kara’s aunt, Sister Astra, is the longest-surviving Halo Bearer. Alex has not met this part of her family till now. She is stern, skilled, and disciplined. She already doesn’t like that Alex isn’t fully a part of the Order and makes this known on every possible occasion. “You should take vows,” she scolds. 

“But I don’t swear myself to God,” Alex says. “Only to my sisters. And Kara in particular.” 

Astra’s training is merciless, but Alex cannot help rising to the challenge. She has no ambitions to become the next Halo Bearer; Astra seems to be grooming Kara for that honor, as one might expect. Alex is there for the fight. She won’t be told she’s not good enough. 

This occasionally rankles Sister Lena, a dramatic young nun with sharp cheekbones and a penchant for drama. Lena is a legacy too, with as long a lineage as Kara’s. She looks at Kara with something in her eyes that looks like desire sometimes, when she thinks no-one is watching. 

*******

  
  


Their first mission is nearly a disaster. Alex is the one asked to hurt a civilian with a demon inside them, and now Alex is forced to simply obey Astra’s orders because she can’t see the fullness of what’s going on around them. But her divinium dagger glows blue, and when she pierces the possessed man, the howl of anguish is far more than pain. It is otherworldly. Kara is shocked at the blood on Alex’s hands, but Alex is only concerned with making sure that she’s done her job to the best of her ability, or the best of anyone’s. 

She’s clumsy, she stabs wildly at the air above the crumpling man as Astra yells instructions at her. She feels the demon turn its attention to her instead, and a burning sensation fills her chest.

She finds herself tackled to the ground, Astra on top of her, yelling all those things in Latin that Alex guesses she probably should have studied better. It’s not smooth, but it’s a rescue. 

And pathetically, Alex is annoyed with herself that the first thought she has is, I _never noticed how pretty Astra is._

  
  


******

When they return to the Cat’s Cradle, Kara sits with her, but it’s Astra who tends to her wounds and asks her how she feels. 

“You need to study more,” she scolds.

“I know,” Alex croaks. 

“It would grieve me to have you die under my command for something so unnecessary.” 

“Would it?” Alex says sardonically. 

The reproach in Astra’s eyes answers Alex’s question. 

“Rest,” Astra commands. She draws her divinium sword partway from its hilt. It’s not glowing, which means that whatever tried to inhabit Alex is no longer there. 

Alex sleeps. When she wakes, she asks Sister Lena to bring her some Latin study texts. 

  
  


********

  
  


Before Alex knows it, a year has flown by. She has fought demons quite a few times now. Astra has twice sent her on black ops, non-demon-fighting missions because she has shown aptitude for it. Kara is settling in with the presence of her biological family around her. Alex is accustomed to following Astra into battle, looking at the glowing circle of the Halo showing through the back of Astra’s armor. Trusting it. 

She stumbles one day upon Astra in the gardens of the Cat’s Cradle, trimming the hydrangeas. It seems a gentle hobby for so fierce a woman. 

When she says so, Astra shoots her a look, but after a moment, it softens. “Did you think I know nothing but war?” 

Alex chuckles sheepishly. “Kind of, yeah.” 

Astra seems to think about this for a moment, but makes no comment. “Where is Kara?” 

“With Lucy and Lena in the library, I think.” 

“Would you like to help me?” 

Alex doesn’t know what to say, so she says yes. They sit quietly together trimming the verge, and Alex finds she likes the calm of it, the peaceful sense of guiding and transforming something. 

Astra invites her to help again sometimes. Alex feels strangely compelled. 

  
  


  
******

Another year has flown by. Kara is finding her own talents: knives, wushu. Alex prefers guns. Far more direct. 

Sister Lena is disdainful. “If you had proper combat skills, you wouldn’t need those.” 

Alex lays her out on the training mat and that is the end of that discussion. Kara claps as Alex stalks away. 

Alex continues her sword training. She finds it’s mostly to please Astra at this point. She often makes her way to the gardens and helps Astra with the trimming and pruning. 

“I heard what happened between you and Lena,” Astra comments, and there is amusement playing around her mouth. 

“What did you hear exactly?” Alex asks warily. 

“I heard that you gave her a bit of a spanking,” she chuckles. 

“I did.” 

“Just remember …. She is full of drama and sass, but she is still your sister.” 

“I know.” 

But Alex pledges to herself to do better with her temper. They don’t talk much when they come out to the gardens, but these quiet times show Alex a side of Astra that she hadn’t suspected was there. 

One day, after a long quiet filled with only the rustling of leaves and a few trilling bird songs, Astra asks, “Would you like to read with me this evening?”

Alex says yes.

  
  


*********

  
  


Time passes faster. Father Hank encourages her to develop hobbies apart from her training. Alex isn’t interested in anything except trimming the verge and reading Latin texts with Astra. 

Astra is devout. She prays. She’s a true believer. Alex remains a skeptic.

“That’s all right,” Astra tells her. “God can use a skeptic too. You’d feel differently if you had the Halo in you.” 

“I have no interest in having the Halo,” Alex says. “Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

Astra smiles. She comes over to where Alex is sitting on a cushion on the floor. She settles in front of her, with her back turned. The Halo glows through her black training gi. “Touch it and see.”

Alex hesitates, but curiosity gets the better of her. She touches the glowing circle. “It’s warm.” But it’s more than that: a benevolence comes washing over her, a love whose source she can’t determine. “I feel…” She falters. “How can I explain?”

“You don’t need to,” Astra says softly. “I know.”

It occurs to Alex for the first time that her feelings for Astra are larger and deeper than she had been aware of. 

  
  


*****

  
  


When the order fights in formation, they are more than formidable. Alex has Kara beside her, and Astra in front of her, and no matter the danger, she feels safer there than anywhere else. Astra has paid special attention to Kara’s training and the girl is lethal as any of them.

A small town in Italy is beset by wraiths. Scores of themes. The Sisters go to do battle. They fight for three days: in shops, in homes, in alleys. Astra depletes the Halo’s energy again and again, and Alex’s job becomes protecting her while it recharges. 

Any doubts Alex may have had regarding the truth of demons is fully and finally banished as she faces an army of the possessed, pulling Astra’s divinium sword from its sheath and swinging the glowing blade around wildly. Astra still has her sight, and tells her where to swing, what moves to use, to deal blows to the wraith demons that endlessly descend. Alex has nothing to go on but trust. 

The Order emerges victorious, but at a cost. Sister Lucy will be recovering for weeks. Lena and Kara have seen things they don’t want to even discuss. And Astra’s injuries are bad enough that even the Halo’s regenerative powers will take time to heal them. 

In the van back to the Cat’s Cradle, Alex looks at Astra’s unconscious form. “You’re going to be alright,” she whispers, so that no-one can hear her. “I love you, and you’re going to be alright.”

When she draws back she’s sure she sees a faint smile flicker across Astra’s unconscious face. 

  
  


******

  
  


Alex hasn’t taken vows, but Astra has. Alex has no frame of reference for platonic love; Astra has to teach her an entirely new framework for intimacy. Astra is filled with passion, and freely admits that she feels a physical love for Alex, as well as emotional and spiritual, but her vows are the most serious thing in her life and she will break them for nobody, not even Alex.

So they spend soft, quiet hours together, drawing such intense pleasure from the simplest of touches: Astra’s fingernails across Alex’s scalp send shivers down her spine, and Alex’s fingers tracing gentle trails up Astra’a wrist make Astra close her eyes and get lost in the humble delight of it. 

“After you,” Alex asks one night, “who was the longest-serving Halo Bearer?”

“Sister Bernadette. Five years.”

Alex winces. “And you’ve served for..?”

“Sixteen.”

Alex sighs. “Isn’t that long enough?”

Astra smiles wryly. “You mean isn’t it time to pass it to someone else so that I can release myself from my vows and we can be together as you would wish?”

“As you would wish too,” Alex points out. 

Astra nods. “That’s so. But there’s no worthy successor now.”

Alex thinks on it. 

  
  


******

  
  


Kara is more battle-hardened now than she was just a few years ago: she has seen things, she has killed things, she has broken things. But her skills are excellent. Alex, without explaining why, begins pushing her to take extra training time together. 

“Why are you pushing me so hard all of a sudden?” Kara asks.

“Because you’re going to be the next Halo Bearer. And your mother would never forgive me if I slacked off on getting you ready.”

“Me?” Kara sounds surprised. “But I thought Lena–“

“Lena has too much to prove,” Alex says. “You have to know it was always Astra’s intention for it to be you from the day you joined.”

“But Halo Bearers don’t live long,” Kara says. 

“Astra’s done it for sixteen years.”

Kara sees the logic in this. 

Alex suspects that this is what Astra wanted her to do. It is amazing how little language has to pass between them to achieve understanding.

  
  


******

  
  


Alex lays her ego aside and soon enough, she cedes the role of Astra’s lieutenant to Kara. 

“Do you think she’s ready?”

“Not yet,” Astra says. She kisses Alex once, softly, and adds, “But she will be soon.”

Alex does not let her escape with only one kiss, and draws her back. Their mouths meet with reverence, and open to each other. Their kiss is filled with holy purpose. Alex wraps her arms around Astra and feels the heat of the Halo burning through her back. 

“Not soon enough,” Alex mumbles. 

“Patience,” says Astra. 

  
  


*******

  
  


Soon, it turns out, is two more years.

Alex moves past the agony of sexual longing in about six months. It opens her eyes to the relationships going on around her. Many of the Sisters have intense emotional relationships. Some break their vows of celibacy with each other, but more seem to find ways to intimacy that do not involve that. It’s not so strange as it first seems. She learns to content herself with the intimacy that she has with Astra. It no longer feels incomplete. It simply is what it is. She won’t go satisfy herself with some girl from town. What would be the point?

Kara has figured out what exists between Alex and her aunt. She has little comment on it. 

The day Astra announces her retirement, it sends a shock through the room. But she’s firm. “I’ve lived and fought far longer than any other Halo Bearer. I will still be available to you for advice. But I have given God eighteen years of my life, and he has given me leave to spend the remainder no longer a soldier.”

*****

Alex can’t leave the OCS. She can’t leave Kara. She stays and fights. 

But she comes home to Astra. She comes home to someone who understands. Who can offer wisdom. 

When lovemaking happens, finally, it’s slow, soft, careful, as they rediscover the longings of their flesh, release them to be satisfied, a little at a time. It is the consummation of years together, fighting at each other’s sides, saving each other, healing each other. It has changed Alex’s understanding of love completely. 

She ministers to the halo scar on Astra’s back in the evenings, and when Alex is not fighting with the Order, they garden together, side by side, in the soft quiet. Her life is war, but there is peace to take refuge in. A shared warrior’s life. A home assembled from broken pieces. 

_“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” –Psalm 143:8_

  
  
  



End file.
